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Johannesburg - SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande has labelled the SABC “factionalist” for flighting news stories about expelled ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema, whom he called an “ethnic entrepreneur”.

Delivering his political report on the first day of the SACP’s four-day conference at the University of Zululand near Richard’s Bay, Nzimande said “Auckland Park is a shame”.

He said “we must be ashamed of the public broadcaster” because “every day there are headlines of people expelled from our movement. You are playing a factional role,” he said, referring to the SABC.

Earlier in his speech, Nzimande also attacked the print media for looking “for all sorts of reasons why the SACP is not united”. He said: “If you are a comrade, do not start your day by reading a newspaper.”

Nzimande attacked Malema and his supporters without mentioning them by name. He referred to Malema and his supporters as an “ethnic entrepreneur” and “tenderpreneurs”.

Nzimande said tenderpreneurs were dangerous, because they will “do all and everything” to achieve their objectives. “They also become ethnic entrepreneurs, in other words they use tribalism to get their objectives,” he said.

“Those people who are expelled from our movement, they are talking about tribalism today. If you start touching on tribalism, you are an enemy of our movement because you can burn this country and destroy our movement.Tribalism

“This alliance is based on the struggle to defeat tribalism.”

He said these expelled leaders were “shouting that their banning is tribalism”, but “they don’t care about our movement, they only care about their stomachs”.

Nzimande said it was “typical of tenderpreneurs” because they only thought about themselves.

In his speech Nzimande distinguished between “entrepreneurs”, who did an honest job, and “tenderpreneurs”, who “collude in a corrupt way to steal tenders and to fraudulently enrich themselves”.

He said tenderpreneurs didn’t like communists, but the “feeling is absolutely mutual”.

Nzimande said corruption must be acted upon. “We must make examples of some big fishes to show we are serious about it,” he said.

Nzimande also launched a veiled attack against detractors of President Jacob Zuma who want to “Americanise” internal ANC politics.

He said there “are attempts to change our internal leadership electoral processes to some kind of US presidential primary elections”. He said there was “impatience with adhering to our long-standing organisational procedures and protocols” and seeking “open elections as some kind of individual beauty contests and parades”.

ANC national executive committee member and presidential hopeful Tokyo Sexwale as well as provinces like Gauteng have called for ANC leadership contests to be more openly contested.

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